


day three. a quarter ‘til two in the afternoon.

by 2ndtolastrow



Series: Congratulations, it’s an old man! [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Mentions of various other batfam members and the birds of prey, also Martha, also featuring a continuing aviodance of the fact that thomas has killed people, and jason does kill people, but phrased in as a fun a way as possible, this fic is mostly a lot of logistics tbh, yes im doing it on purpose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 02:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20185003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2ndtolastrow/pseuds/2ndtolastrow
Summary: Thomas has to legally exist. The figuring out of the ‘how’ apparently belongs to one Barbara Gordon.





	day three. a quarter ‘til two in the afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for a mention of a hostage situation and discussion of temporary character death(s)

Thomas found an Italian cut suit laid out for him when he woke up. He’d nearly laughed, because he was already muscular and large enough without padded shoulders.

Now, looking at the woman in front of him, he’s grateful. Barbara Gordon is short, or, for clarity’s sake, would be if she were standing. She’s also rather slim, but her tank top bares well-muscled arms, he can spot several weapons (batons, a tazer, and something he thinks might be a bola, but can’t see clearly enough) lodged at various points in her chair. 

Her expression shows a level of faintly frightening determination, and he’s on _her_ home turf: an old clock tower, which his grandson had referred to as The Clocktower, capital letters and all. (He hasn’t quite gotten over the joy of _grandson_ or _granddaughter_ yet. Dick grins at him every time he says ‘Grandpa’ like he feels the same)

And, if it weren’t for all that, she’s a redhead. 

Her glasses glint as she turns away from her monitors to smile at him. (It’s a rather nice smile, but he isn’t fooled.) “Mr. Wayne. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Call me Thomas,” he says, leaning in and slightly down to offer her his hand. Not enough to be patronizing, just enough to make it easier for both of them. He hadn’t known Barbara Gordon, before. He had known that the commissioner had a daughter, but he’d only met her once, when the policeman’s ball had been held hostage.

Her hand is calloused, and her grip firm. “Hey, Dick. There’s leftovers in the fridge if you haven’t eaten.”

Dick’s skin is too dark to blush very clearly, but the embarrassed grin he gives sends the message just as well.

“It’s from that Italian place Helena likes,” she adds, and he seems to stop caring about things like embarrassment, shouting his thanks as he runs off to the kitchen.

“Sit down, you’ll strain my neck.” 

He sits at the rolling desk chair seemingly placed for this purpose. “Would you believe that I get that a lot?”

“Yes.” She snorts. “So, you’re legally dead.”

“I’m from an alternate timeline,” he corrects, unthinkingly.

She gives him a tired look. “We are not explaining that to the general public. Batman, Inc. compromised secret identities enough. The idea that in another world, Thomas Wayne became Batman would make it pretty hard to keep them any longer.”

“Fair enough.”

“But we can use alien or timeline shifting resurrection. The Justice League will be announcing that there was a timeline incident, for the sake of people who are sensitive to things and might remember stuff that didn’t happen, or… _loose ends._” She gestures at him.

“So we say what? That I just woke up in the manor, and that I popped out of nowhere?”

“Yep. Haven’t got a memory since your death, but you’re glad to be back. Option B is that you are not Thomas Wayne, but ‘insert-name-here’ Wayne, a distant relative who’s been living as a hermit in the middle of nowhere for the past god knows how many years.”

He squints at her. “Can I be a Jewish hermit? I converted for Martha, you know.”

Dick snickers in the doorway. There’s an open styrofoam box in his left, and a fork in his right. “You can be whatever religion you want, Grandpa, but you might want to go with the closest thing to the truth.”

“Because if you don’t,” Barbara continues, “it makes resurrecting Jason a whole lot harder, as soon as we convince the idiot to stop being legally dead. Also, it means character witnesses and a lot of education on what being a hermit is like. And possibly a spray tan.”

Thomas had never actually been planning on going the hermit option, but he makes a face at the thought of a spray tan. “Jason is legally dead?”

Dick sits on one of the few clear spaces of Barbara’s desks. Then he leans forward until his back is parallel with the desk in what appears to be a butterfly stretch. “Yeah. He was actually dead for a while, and then pretty angry with everybody. We’re still working on fixing everything.”

“And me being not me makes that harder because…?” Thomas looks at Barbara for this one.

“One weirdo relative with holes in his story,” she tells him, “and one not-dead son who might just be an impostor who’s actually been living in Gotham for years and not as an amnesiac in Ethiopia, becomes one not-dead son who’s actually an impostor who figured that it would be pretty easy to do this if that guy could.”

It makes sense. “So if we weren’t planning on making me any papers, why am I here?”

“You’re trying to meet the family,” Dick says, attempting to manage what’s left of his fettuccine. “Babs is definitely family. Also, she helps with Batman-ing. And a bunch of other superheroes.”

He looks at the computers. Then at the woman with the terrifying gleam of intelligence in her eye. (He realizes that it reminds him of Martha, just a bit.) “Hacker?”

“These days.” She smiles, at little nostalgically. “You might’ve seen my old Batgirl uniform down in the Cave.”

(He probably had, amongst the uniforms. But most of his time in his son’s cave has been spent on his _son,_ and he hasn’t quite gotten around to investigating.)

He nods, slightly. “I—you’ve probably got work to do—“

“Wendy can handle it.” Her smile turns from nostalgic to proud. “She’s my protégée in this sort of thing.”

“You have more than one?”

Dick laughs. “It’s something she shares with Bruce. All big and scary and then they’ve got a whole flock of birds following them.”

Barbara rolls her eyes. “The Birds don’t—“

“Yeah, they do.” He sits up, turning until his shoulders are at a right angle with the rest of him and cracking his spine in the process. “Babs’ grown up team is the Birds of Prey. She also tends to take over Batgirl’s training—“

“It’s my name!”

“—and is fostering the lovely Misfit, a teleporter.” 

There are a lot more hero teams here than Thomas is used to. Pretty much all they had before was Cyborg and the United States Army, if that counted. The old Justice Society, once upon a time.

“Huh. Bruce leveled up from animals to people. Did she?”

Barbara and Dick share a silent conversation. It covers “ohhhh, we can use that” and “don’t you dare say a word, Grayson” and “what else am I supposed to do?” Thomas watches with amusement.

She raises an eyebrow, and Dick admits defeat. “Sorry, I’ve been sworn to secrecy on all matters of Babs’s childhood.”

“That still says there’s something to keep secret,” Thomas says with a grin.

Barbara points a finger at him. “Alright, I changed my mind. You’re too much like Bruce, even with a better sense of humor. Get out of my clocktower.”

Thomas realizes that she’d probably remembered something as she wheels herself back towards the monitors. He stands slowly, cursing his entire body and also the process of aging (and Alfred, for giving him a suit without vents).

“Well, it was lovely to meet you, even if we must be going. I’m sure my grandson has more people to introduce me to.” He bends over to shake her hand again, and she smiles.

“Likewise.”

Dick flips his way into a standing position, and slings an arm over Thomas’s shoulders, steering him out of the room. “Okay, so we won’t be reaching into the computer haze anytime soon. But you have reminded me of the powers of video calling, we’ll call Cass when we’re home.”

“Check Hong Kong time,” Barbara calls over her shoulder as they exit, and Dick corrects to, “As soon as we’re home and Cass is awake.”

Thomas smiles, and presses the button for the elevator.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are very welcome


End file.
